Vulgalour's Vehicles - 10/03 Ignition Switch Woe

[vulgalour]

Nice selection of R8s too, even if I find your choice of wheel disturbingly similar to what my brother wants to put on mine.

[3xpendable]

Nice Rover porn there. I always liked the 90's 200/400 shape even though I owned 2 414's as my first cars and hated them for the HG troubles. Apart from that I liked their styling and comfort, especially the interior. My brother had a 216SLI that only died due to rotting away.

[vulgalour]

Hey look, a 'proper' classic update for you for once.

Been a while but today got some time in on this little green disaster zone. At present the car is all bundled up like a festive gift in a lovely blue tarpaulin to keep it safe and dry and efforts so far to un-seize the engine have been utterly in vain. So it was determined that today we'd see if it was the pistons, camshaft or crankshaft that was seized or a combination of all three.

Ordinarily for a first-time job like this I'd take a photo-diary of what was done but with the components being rather slimy-oily, using a camera wasn't a particularly good idea. Suffice to say the whole job was relatively easy, the only slightly more involved part being removing the woodruff key from the washer on the camshaft and then not losing the woodruff key. Everything was carefully wiped free of oily gunge with the exception of camshaft and crankshaft which I don't want to flash-rust as I'm not sure how long it'll be before I put this all together again. The other thing to be sure of is that everything was put away in order, with labels, so I don't lose anything, particularly vital for this sort of job.

With the block upside-down it was easy to unfasten the pistons first, this did drop the liners out of the block which I'm told isn't ideal but also that it's not the end of the world. I was expecting the liners to have some resistance to coming out but they didn't, they were really easy to remove. The pistons are really firmly stuck too so they'll be getting a bath in hot engine oil as a last ditch attempt to free them, there was no way these were coming out in situ.


The rest of the internals were carefully removed and set aside, all the various bolts that go in the block were put back in their respective holes so I don't lose them and things like the pushrods and head bolts were stored in some labelled cardboard for the same reason.


With the block now free of everything I could see quite a lot of orange gunge in the water jacket which can't have helped with historic issues this little engine has had. It also means getting a new radiator or refurbishing my existing one is a must, if this is what's in the engine there's going to be more of it throughout the coolant system and that all needs cleaning out.


The block and sump were pressure washed to get the worst of the gunk out, they'll get a deeper clean before the rebuild.





The good thing is that most items inside the engine are in good order. The piston bearing shells look re-usable and if the liners and pistons can be persuaded to part company there's a chance they will just need a clean/hone and new piston rings before going back in the car. The paper gasket under the liners will need replacing. Crankshaft and camshaft are both good too, neither showing obvious signs of scoring or excessive wear.

The one item that showed wear were the main bearings, some of which are badly scored, so I'll need a full set of those.

I'll get some snaps of the other bits and pieces that were done at a later date. The oil pick up/strainer is now lovely and clean after being de-gunged and the sump looks to be in pretty good order and just needs an exterior repaint. Overall I'm quite happy with this. Parts for the engine appear to be quite cheap and with it being so small and easy to work on it shouldn't cost much in time or money to get it all back together and functional again.

I just need to find a new set of main bearing shells, paper gasket for under the liners, a set of piston rings and pay a company to check the shafts and hone/clean the liners if we can get the pistons out of them and get the block properly cleaned before rebuilding it all. I'll also need a new head gasket, I put the cart before the horse and rebuilt and refitted the head not long after getting the car back from Wales without un-seizing the pistons, silly me.

[tractorman]

It may be worth getting a price for liners and pistons - it might actually work out cheaper than trying to "restore" the originals (and a heck of a lot easier). Similarly, don't get new main bearing shells until you have had the crank checked; apart from the fact that there may be damage if the shells are scored, the journals may be worn and need regrinding, which would make the new shells the wrong size if you bought them first!

I've seen much grottier blocks than yours - and some that were nowhere near as easy to get "inside" (including some with wet liners). You may find that the radiator will just need a good flushing out and it will be fine - it might be worth a try before spending more money (I hate throwing money away for no good reason - so I bought a Land Rover )

[JPB]

It may be worth getting a price for liners and pistons - it might actually work out cheaper than trying to "restore" the originals (and a heck of a lot easier). Similarly, don't get new main bearing shells until you have had the crank checked; apart from the fact that there may be damage if the shells are scored, the journals may be worn and need regrinding, which would make the new shells the wrong size if you bought them first!

I've seen much grottier blocks than yours - and some that were nowhere near as easy to get "inside" (including some with wet liners). You may find that the radiator will just need a good flushing out and it will be fine - it might be worth a try before spending more money (I hate throwing money away for no good reason - so I bought a Land Rover )

Agreed, especially the parts about looking into liner & seal sets and the importance of checking the crank before committing to new shells. The smaller capacity Cleon/Sierra engines aren't especially prone to crankshaft issues - even into the hundreds of thousands of miles - but the liners were rarely rebored back in the day and sets of pistons & liners were sold in oversizes for those who wanted such things, these still tip up at autojumbles from time to time but be sure & get the right ones for the engine code as the height of the ledges in the water jacket varies between ostensibly similar blocks.
Setting the liners up in the block is the critical part as sunken liners will cause almost daily HG problems and they can also leak at the shims once the original Silicoset has been disturbed, which is why flat washers need to be used to secure the liners whenever the head comes off. Even if you're 99% sure that the liners didn't move, don't take the risk and observe the correct height above the deck when refitting, allow the odd thou' over the 0.004" (-0/+1) protrusion for the shims to compress. Don't skimp on the Silicoset at the bottom step, it's cheaper and a whole lot less annoying than having to do the job twice.

They're a cracking wee motor when they're properly built and a ruddy great nightmare when they're not.

[vulgalour]

I've got a couple of leads for parts to follow up just to see if I can get the bits. I've seen engines come up occasionally over the past year or so to so there's an absolute emergency solution there. This little engine has done 130,000 miles from what little history I can piece together and though I originally thought it had only ever been in Wales, there's some evidence it went over to the continent. I was very surprised at the lack of damage and wear in the engine given that knowledge, it really does seem like a tough little engine so I'm optimistic about the rebuild providing I can get the parts I need.

[vulgalour]

Since I've been fiddling about with the engine tonight, here's some pictures I didn't provide last time. First up the oil pick-up/pump/strainer thingy. This was all gunged up and the spindle was not that free moving but after a soak in some cleaner and a bit of a scrub it's lovely and almost sparkly and the spindle moves much better now.




A sample section of the camshaft. It's all like this. There's no sign of excessive wear or scoring from what I could see so I'm hoping it needs little more than a good clean. More experienced eyes may see issues I'm not aware of on this component.


The main bearing shells didn't look as bad as I remembered. There are a few scores on a couple of the shells but not the mess I'm sure was there when I removed them. Perhaps they just aren't as bad as I thought. Can these be reused, do we think?




Finally tried a bit of home cooking. Didn't achieve anything bar cleaning the surface of the piston head that's visible outside of the liner. I won't be doing more of this at home even if it does help, I hadn't realised just how much of a stink it would make and the kitchen now has that satisfying odour of a well used garage, which isn't a smell I really want in the kitchen.


I'll keep plugging away, we'll get there eventually.

[JPB]

The crank journals might be ok, but you need to measure them and check for ovality and wasting or wearing barrel fashion. The shells don't look too bad compared to some I've taken from engines that weren't particularly worn but no, shells mustn't be reused as the tabs that locate them in their caps and in the block (mains) and the con rods (ends) are deformed slightly to locate the shells securely as the caps are tightened down. Once the shells have been removed, then these tabs can snap when any subsequent attempt is made to use the same shells. Some folk get away with reusing shells but it's bad practice and if the tabs let go then the shells will run, so blocking off the oil feed holes to the journals, which would result in more expense. Don't risk it for the sake of saving a few quid.

[kstrutt1]

Also the copper is just begining to show though on a couple of the shells so though not to bad they are certainly worn.

[vulgalour]

Unless you mean the groove down the middle, the 'copper' you can see is actually a little bit of engine oil, they're uniformly silver-metal type colour when completely clear of oil. Everything I handled when I took the pictures was getting oil on it, no matter how careful I was.

--

After yesterday being a bit of a no-go on the car front, today was much better. I got out one of my favourite tools and used it in conjunction with a lump of wood and a big old bench vice.


It was surprisingly easy to free all four pistons from their liners and I'm delighted about that.


None of the piston rings were broken and the pistons themselves look in good order. There's no obvious sign of steps, scores or other damage in the liner bores either which I'm delighted about. The next step is definitely to get everything cleaned up and assessed properly to work out what I do and don't need to replace before rebuilding this little engine. Feeling much more positive about it all.


Went to the Princess and she fired straight up but is only running on 3 cylinders instead of 4 so I need to investigate that further. Didn't look into that today, I'm hoping it's a duff spark plug or a mucky contact rather than something more serious. Doesn't bog down under throttle now. Proof that cars should be used, they don't like sitting idle.